


The Three-Steve Solution

by galwednesday



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha!Bucky, Alpha!Steve, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Aphrodisiacs, Beta!Sam, Beta!Steve, Crack, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Humor, Kidnapping, M/M, Multiverse dopplegangers, Omega!Steve, Skinny!Steve, all the Steves, author's shipping style is less OTP and more musical chairs, because author is a tease, but no actual orgies, checkers as a contact sport, discussions of orgies, not even mad social science, omega!Tony, there was a three-for-one Steve special at K-Marvel, there's no funding for social science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-06-16
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7222525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galwednesday/pseuds/galwednesday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cell was a sinister parody of a cheesy roadside motel. An enormous heart-shaped bed draped in red satin sheets took up half the room. There was a small mountain of pillows heaped by the headboard, a little wicker basket of supplies Steve didn’t want to think about, and an honest-to-God sprinkling of rose petals across the bedspread. It would have been funny if not for the ceiling camera positioned above the bed, guarded by a panel of probably-unbreakable glass. </p><p>The guards shoved Steve, Rogers, and Cap inside the room and backed out. The door closed behind them with the dull thud of reinforced steel and concrete. “You boys have fun!” one of the guards shouted, to a chorus of jeers and snickers. </p><p>“Wow,” Steve deadpanned, eyeing the whole travesty of a honeymoon suite before them. He didn’t know where to start. “This is...thorough.”</p><p>“I’ll say.” Rogers rummaged through the basket of supplies. “There are five different kinds of lube in here.”</p><p>(A team of AIM scientists reach into alternate universes to kidnap alpha, beta, and omega versions of Steve Rogers, hoping that together they’ll breed the next generation of supersoldiers. The Steves do not cooperate. Hijinks ensue.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Three-Steve Solution

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how this happened. I thought “I should try writing something with action scenes” and I had just read some unrelated A/B/O and multiverse fics and they somehow combined with mad scientists in my fevered brain, and before I knew it I was knee deep in Steves. This is...an adventure comedy? With incidentally A/B/O characters? And complaints about grant funding? I don’t even know, but I REGRET NOTHING. 
> 
> CW: this story includes characters being kidnapped and drugged with an aphrodisiac against their will, but no non-con or dub-con sex occurs (see the end note for more details).

It said something worrying about Steve’s life that even with a bag over his head, he could recognize the ominous electric hum of a stun baton. 

He had been out on his morning run when he’d suddenly gotten head-to-toe goosebumps and felt his hair rise, like he was standing too close to Thor while he was raising lightning. A second later a suffocating pressure had squeezed his whole body, and before he could even draw a breath to swear, he’d blacked out.

When he came to with his arms cuffed behind his back and a bag over his head, his strongest reaction was annoyance at not getting to finish his run. He’d been planning to stop by Pete’s bagel cart on the other side of the park; it was Tuesday, and lox bagels were half off. 

“You owe me a bagel,” Steve told the world at large. The only response was a hard shove from the guard behind him. 

The hood muffled his hearing, but there were two guards pulling him along by the arms, and he thought there were at least four more behind him. His legs felt like rubber, but they were getting stronger, his nerves tingling from ankle to hip as circulation returned. Steve wasn’t sure how long he’d been out, but whatever they’d done was wearing off fast.

The cuffs around his wrists were strong, but they were a couple sizes too big. He pulled the right cuff taut against his wrist. It would only take him a second to draw his hand through, but it wouldn’t do him any good to have his hands free until he knew more about where he was, and he didn’t want to lose the advantage of surprise.

The guards manhandled him through a doorway and pushed him roughly to his knees. Steve braced himself for a blow.

“Oh, this can’t be right,” a disappointed male voice said. The hood was whisked off, and Steve narrowed his eyes against the sudden light. Two people in white coats were hovering in front of him. 

“Look at his face!” a woman insisted. “He’s definitely a Rogers.”

“He’s so shrimpy,” the man argued. “You’re telling me that’s a supersoldier?”

“Break one of his fingers,” the woman instructed the guard behind him, “and we’ll see how fast it heals.”

That was as good a cue as any. Steve squeezed one hand out of the too-big cuffs, punched the woman in the stomach and the man square in the nuts, and launched himself out the door.

Chaos ensued, unfortunately briefly. Steve only got as far as the end of the hallway, shoving past two more guards and leaping up to kick a third in the face, before he hit a reinforced steel door and had to turn around. He found himself facing a wall of riot shields and stun batons as a second squad of guards took up formation in the hallway. They were wearing all-too-familiar AIM yellow.

“See?” The woman staggered out into the hallway, clutching her stomach but still managing to sound triumphant. “See how fast he was? And he threw Jenkins right into the wall, didn’t he, Jenkins?”

“Yes, ma’am,” one of the guards said, resentfully.

“Fine, I’m convinced,” the male scientist called through the doorway, his voice pitched significantly higher than it had been before. It sounded like he was still lying on the floor. “Put him with the others, and for God’s sake, make sure the handcuffs fit this time.”

 

Steve made sure to keep dragging his feet so the guards would have to physically haul him down the hallway. It was a trick Natasha had taught him; if he could emphasize how small he was, how easily he could be pushed around, people lowered their guard, even when they should know better. It irked his pride to let himself be manhandled, but escaping was more important than preserving his dignity. 

The guards pulled him into a lab and towards three chairs with heavy-duty restraints. Two of the chairs were occupied, and for a moment, Steve was so shocked he forgot to struggle. 

The two men strapped to neighboring chairs could have been identical twins. They were both tall, blond, and built like tanks, broad and layered with muscle. One of them was wearing khakis and a plaid button down, while the other was in Iron Man pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt.

They also both had  _ Steve’s face_, and they looked almost as surprised to see Steve as he was to see them. 

“What the hell,” Steve breathed. The guards dropped him onto the chair unceremoniously and fastened restraints around his wrists. They had to tug him down so his elbows bent before his legs reached the ankle cuffs. Steve barely noticed, too busy gawking at his enormous doppelgangers.

“Hey,” the man in the middle chair greeted. “Steve Rogers, right?”

“Yeah. You too?” The other men both nodded. Steve felt a headache coming on. “This is going to get confusing.”

“Call me Cap,” the biggest one sighed. 

“I can be Rogers,” the other offered.

“Then I’ll stick with Steve. I’d say nice to meet you both, but, well.” Steve looked around the lab, scientists in white coats scrambling between crowded lab benches and guards with stun batons keeping a watchful eye on the three supersoldiers. “You got any idea what the hell we’re doing here?”

Cap turned bright red.

“It’s kind of weird,” Rogers said. 

Weird was the default for AIM projects; this one must have been weirder than most if it was worth pointing out. “What is it?” 

“They want us to mate.”

Steve felt his face face wrinkle up like a prune. “Excuse me?”

“Like I said.” Rogers shrugged as best he could with both arms pinned in place. “Weird.”

“I’m  _ partnered_.”

“So are we,” Rogers said defensively. “It’s not like it’s our idea.”

“They grabbed me first.” Cap was talking to them, but his eyes never left the guards stationed around the lab’s perimeter. “When they told me their plan I laughed in their faces, but they didn’t seem concerned.”

“That’s alarming.” Steve craned his neck, trying to see what the scientists were working on. “How did we even get here?” 

“Multiverse travel!” the nearest scientists said brightly. She picked up a clipboard and hovered in front of the Steves, giving them an encouraging smile. Steve exchanged a perplexed look with Cap and Rogers; kidnappers weren’t usually this friendly. 

“We’re in a different universe?” Steve asked.

“Yes. It was very exciting to see multiverse transference in action--I’d only read about the theory before. It takes an astonishing amount of energy to transport people between universes, you know.”

Steve furrowed his brow. “Why grab us at all? What makes us worth all that?” 

“Well, Dr. Preibus wants to create a new generation of supersoldiers,” the scientist said conversationally, as though they were acquaintances chatting at a conference, “so he thought bringing an A/B/O triad together would give him the best chances of producing healthy offspring that had the serum enhancements of the parents.”

Steve and Rogers grimaced at each other. Cap glared mutinously into the middle distance, looking like he was trying to set the whole lab on fire with his mind.

“But I’m really more interested in how social expectations affect metahuman subjects of different orientations,” the scientist continued, “and you three are the closest thing I’m going to find to a controlled set. It’s very exciting! There’s no funding for the social sciences, though, so until AIM gets a clue and realizes social engineering is the future, I’m just assisting Dr. Preibus and his team. I don’t suppose any of you would be willing to do an oral history later?” she added, a bit wistfully.

Cap growled at her, and she sighed. “I didn’t think so, but it never hurts to ask.”

“We’re not going to mate just because you tell us to,” Rogers said flatly.

“Of course not!” She patted Rogers’ restrained arm and looked over towards the other scientists, who were now, ominously, filling three syringes with a viscous purple liquid. “That’s what the medication is for.”

 

The scientists all hovered in a semi-circle as a technician administered the drug to each supersoldier in turn. Steve didn’t bother squirming when the syringe jabbed into his thigh muscle, although Cap tried (unsuccessfully, unfortunately) to bite the tech’s ear off. 

The drug must have included a fast-acting sedative, because Steve started feeling light-headed almost immediately. It messed up his coordination enough that he didn’t have to pretend to stumble as the guards hauled him and the other supersoldiers back into the hallway. They were taken to the steel door Steve had run into earlier, which opened onto a cell the AIM scientists, with an almost admirable dedication to being as fucking creepy as possible, were calling the “breeding room.” 

The cell was a sinister parody of a cheesy roadside motel. An enormous heart-shaped bed draped in red satin sheets took up half the room. There was a small mountain of pillows heaped by the headboard, a little wicker basket of supplies Steve didn’t want to think about, and an honest-to-God sprinkling of rose petals across the bedspread. It would have been funny if not for the ceiling camera positioned above the bed, guarded by a panel of probably-unbreakable glass. 

The guards shoved Steve, Rogers, and Cap inside the room and backed out. The door closed behind them with the dull thud of reinforced steel and concrete. “You boys have fun!” one of the guards shouted, to a chorus of jeers and snickers. 

“Wow,” Steve deadpanned, eyeing the whole travesty of a honeymoon suite before them. He didn’t know where to start. “This is...thorough.”

“I’ll say.” Rogers rummaged through the basket of supplies. “There are five different kinds of lube in here.”

Cap’s face was the same scarlet as the sheets, but he set his jaw and performed a diligent sweep of the room, testing each corner for weak seams and looking for vents. When he didn’t find any, he lifted his chin, made deliberate eye contact with the camera, and flipped it off. Steve agreed wholeheartedly.

None of them wanted to get too close to the bed. By unspoken agreement, they all chose different corners to sink into. The sedative was already burning off, replaced by uncomfortably insistent arousal. Steve waited for the drug to take full effect, grimly anticipating the humiliating loss of control.

And waited.

And kept waiting.

After more than an hour, Steve’s erection hadn’t subsided, but no new symptoms had begun, either. Cautiously, he looked up, making fleeting eye contact with the others. Neither of them seemed to be overcome with lust; they looked just as bored as he was.

Rogers was the first to break the silence. “Well, this is awkward.”

“Still,” Steve said, “less awkward than I expected, so far.”

“Not sure it’s working as they intended. I mean,” Cap waved vaguely at his crotch and cleared his throat. “That is. But I’m still in my right mind, as far as I can tell.”

“Yeah, I’m definitely not in heat.” Rogers laced his hands behind his neck and tipped his head back. “Small favors.”

They all waited another few minutes. Steve sighed and settled more comfortably into his corner, leaning an elbow against his knees. Even the embarrassment of his straining erection was fading as more time ticked past uneventfully. 

“I wish we had a checkers board or something,” Steve said finally.

Cap surveyed the bed, his gaze lingering on the black and scarlet pillows. “I bet we can figure something out.”

 

The satin pillowcases were easy to tear into strips and weave into a grid of black and red. The rose petals, rightside-up crimson for one player and upside-down pale pink for the other, made acceptable checkers pieces. They took turns, with whoever sat out playing the winner for the next round. Whoever wasn’t playing got to be the referee, which turned out to be necessary because all three of them played checkers like it was a contact sport. 

“Hey, that’s cheating!”

“Is not, that’s a legal move--”

“Moving  _ sideways  _ over two pieces is a legal move?”

“Of course, what kind of cockamamie checkers do they have in your universe?”

“You are so full of shit--”

The door swung open. All three of them scrambled to their feet in an instant, Cap already launching himself at the door. The crackle of stun batons held at the ready brought him up short.

“Back to the lab, loverboys,” the head guard ordered. “And if I were you I’d make it snappy. The docs aren’t happy with you.”

 

On the other side of the lab, the scientists were arguing.

“Arousal responses are three times their measured baselines, the drug is--”

“--not enough to just affect the limbic system, we have to--”

“--is not ‘working as intended’ if they’re playing fucking checkers instead of--”

“--the base instinct is there, but it’s being suppressed by--”

“--the real problem, if inhibitions are intact arousal alone won’t--”

“--still capable of higher reasoning, but if we can remove that--”

Steve really didn’t like where that discussion was going. 

They had been buckled back into the exam chairs so the scientists could draw blood and measure their current hormone levels. Steve hadn’t struggled this time, instead feigning dizziness as the guards hauled him into the chair and the lab techs swarmed. The cuffs weren’t quite as tight as before, and most of the guards in the room were watching his much larger doubles. He was just a skinny little beta, what harm could he do? 

Steve had learned to love being underestimated. It was a gift his enemies wrapped up in a bow and handed right to him.

He hadn’t been able to make plans with the others under the gimlet eye of the camera’s surveillance, but he figured Cap and Rogers would catch on quick. They must have been shrimpy too, before the serum. They would know all about the advantages of being overlooked. 

Steve slumped down further, as though on the verge of passing out, in a way that just so happened to block the guards’ view of one of his cuffed hands. Cap started growling and jerking against his restraints a few moments later, drawing even more of the guards’ attention. Perfect.

Steve kept his eyes closed and face slack as he pulled his thumb in tight against his palm. He could dislocate it if he had to, thanks to Natasha’s lessons in advanced escape maneuvers, but this chair had been built for someone with much bigger arms, and this time the cuff was loose enough that he could work his hand out intact. It took him a couple of minutes to do it slowly enough to hide the movement, which gave the guards extra time to get truly nervous about Cap. 

Just as Steve pulled his hidden hand loose, Cap gave an especially loud growl and pulled his legs up so hard the chair rattled against the floor.

“Hey!” One of the guards stepped forward, stun baton half raised. “Knock it off!”

Cap snarled at him and thrashed harder. 

“Leave him alone!” Rogers shouted, right on cue. “He’s drugged, he can’t help it! Our hormones are going crazy. He could go into an alpha frenzy at any moment!”

Steve bit back snickers. This was classic USO tour acting: big and showy, every line shouted to the rafters. The AIM guards were eating it up. Steve, apparently fainting his way over the side of his chair, was all but forgotten. 

The chair under Cap was reinforced, but the bolts anchoring it to the ground were not. With an almighty screech, the bolts bent and twisted out of the concrete floor as Cap heaved to one side, wrenching the chair up and over.

Guards surged towards Cap as shrieking scientists scrambled back. Steve yanked his other arm free, gritting his teeth against the sting as the metal cuff skinned his thumb, and lunged down to uncuff his ankles. 

By the time anyone noticed he was free, he was already out the door.

 

Steve had short legs, but he was  _ fast_. The sounds of chaos behind him steadily receded as he sprinted along the corridors, heading away from the lab and “breeding room” as fast as he could get. 

He darted through the first stairwell door he saw and leapt down the stairs five at a time. Usually people trying to leave a building headed for ground level; he went deeper underground instead, hoping to throw off pursuit. 

Steve did a double take at the bottom of the stairwell, spinning around to get a second look at the sign on the wall. It was an evacuation map marking emergency exits. He had to stifle a slightly hysterical giggle at the unexpected nod to proper fire safety as he committed the map to memory.

The official exits would be well-guarded. His best bet was to avoid detection until he could find an alternate escape route, through a window or fire escape or, hell, sewer tunnel, he wasn’t in a position to be picky. Steve thought about the map and headed towards the smaller, more remote hallways, hoping he’d be less likely to encounter people there than by the main labs.

Steve rounded a corner and ran straight into Iron Man. 

For a panicked second he wondered if Iron Man was evil in this universe and working with AIM, but then the faceplate popped up and Tony Stark was staring at him in horror.

“Steve,” he hissed, eyes scanning Steve from head to toe. His gauntlets seemed to melt away, revealing bare hands. “Holy shit, Steve, what’d they do to you?” 

Not Steve’s Tony, then. Steve decided to think of him as Stark. Multiverse linguistics were a real pain in the ass. “Listen, Tony--”

Stark reached down to cup his cheek, then jerked his hand away. His eyes hardened and he took a step back, gauntlets reforming. “You’re not him.”

“No,” Steve agreed, keeping his posture relaxed and his hands open. “They grabbed three of us. Are you looking for an alpha or an omega?”

“Alpha.” Stark still looked deeply suspicious, but he was at least listening. “Where is he?”

“Twenty minutes ago we were all in the main lab. Your Steve caused a distraction, I wriggled out and ran for it. As far as I know, the other two are still there.”

Stark visibly braced himself before asking, “Injuries?”

“Nothing to speak of,” Steve assured him. “They took some blood from each of us, but they’re scientists, not military. No beatings, no torture. How’d you get here? They said we were in a different universe.”

“We are.” Stark’s eyes lit up with that familiar hell-yeah-SCIENCE glow, and Steve felt himself relax a little. An imposter could have known to pretend concern, but only an actual Stark would have been so genuinely excited about multiverse travel, even in the context of a kidnapping. “As far as I can tell they got a lock on Steve’s DNA, dragged him through a modified Einstein-Rosen bridge, and cut the bridge cables on their side, so to speak. I tried to reverse engineer the process and drag him back, but they have a multiverse transference dampening field around the whole facility, so I had to come myself. I was going to grab him and fly us both out, them jump back to our universe once we got beyond the field.”

Steve sorted through scenarios in his mind, weighing what he’d seen of the compound so far with Iron Man’s capabilities. “Can we disable the dampening field first? It’s going to be hard to get to the other Steves when they’re surrounded by half the guards on base. If we take the field out first, then we can jump immediately if things get hairy during the rescue.”

“Sure. The field extends about a mile in every direction from a point inside this compound." Stark swung around, one finger pointing further into the maze of hallways. "If I’m right, and I usually am, there’s a field generator there. We take it out, we can all click our heels three times and head back home the first chance we get. Or back to my home, at least, and then I'll have my lab and JARVIS and all the other delightful modern conveniences AIM facilities lack, so I'm sure from there I can find a way to slingshot you and the other-other Steve back to your universes, too."

Steve nodded. "Sounds like a plan."

Stark flipped his visor down and started moving purposefully down the hallway, gauntlets held at the ready. Steve followed, fingers itching for his shield. His jogging shorts weren’t exactly appropriate battle gear.

“Can I ask you a question? It might make you want to punch me.”

Steve snorted. “Never stopped you before.”

“Did you get the serum?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why are you so short?”

Steve bristled, shoulders automatically squaring. “The serum fixed flaws. Being short isn’t a flaw.”

If Stark laughed at him, Steve was going to kick him in the back of the knee and drop him, suit or no suit, but Stark just shrugged. “Can’t argue with that. I mean, just look at me. Not that I’m short. Just shorter than you--other you, I mean. And Thor, but everybody’s shorter than Thor.”

“Pretty sure you’re shorter than Bruce, too,” Steve offered, just to be obnoxious.

“Well, maybe.”

“And Bucky.”

“I guess.”

“And Clint.”

Stark huffed and opened his faceplate to more effectively glare at Steve. “Okay, fun-size, you’ve made your point. Let’s never speak of this again.”

“Sure thing, short stack.”

“Hold up,” Stark said, stopping short as his faceplate closed. “We’ve got incoming, one big guy running. JARVIS, compare biometrics? Oh, yeah, that looks promising.” Stark reversed direction, diving down a side corridor. Steve scrambled to catch up. “You supersoldiers run a few degrees hotter than vanilla humans like moi. Could be this guy’s just warm from running, but if we’re lucky--”

Cap skidded around a corner and stopped short. “Tony?”

“Steve!” Stark said with obvious delight. His faceplate popped up and he pulled Cap into a quick kiss before stepping back to look him over, head to toe. “You vanished without a trace. All of your trackers went off the grid at once, and that’s  _ not acceptable_, babycakes, you can’t just run off to alternate dimensions without leaving so much as a post-it note, you understand? Major breach of contract. Do we have a contract? I’ll make us a contract, and that’ll be a major breach of it. No cross-dimensional travel without prior notice. That’ll be clause number one.”

Cap was letting the words rush over him without even trying to respond. He was also staring at Stark like he wanted to back him up against the wall, preferably while neither of them were wearing pants. 

Steve coughed pointedly. Cap startled and refocused.

“Right.” He angled his body slightly away from Stark, but didn’t let go of his arm. “Tony, this is Steve.”

“Uh, yeah, kind of figured that out, Cap. Your tiny doppelganger is  _ hot_. Don’t get me wrong, babe, you’ll always be my favorite tree to climb, but who knew short and skinny was such a good look on you?” 

Cap had gone red yet again, but this time Steve’s own cheeks felt hot as well. He rubbed the back of his neck and resisted the urge to cover his erection. “Gee, thanks?”

“Oh, this one blushes too!” Stark crowed. Now that he had seen for himself that Cap was unharmed, he seemed downright giddy. “That’s adorable. Can we keep him?”

Cap hid his face behind one giant hand, muffling his voice. “Tony.”

“So I should probably put this more delicately, but I suck at tact, so I’m just going to ask,” Stark continued. “What’s up--pun intended--with the erections? Is this a sex pollen situation?”

“They were working on that,” Cap said grimly. “Their first try didn’t go quite as they expected.”

“Untested experiments are always tricky,” Stark said, all pseudo-sympathy. 

“We didn’t stick around for round two. Rogers was right behind me, but we ran into a guard patrol five corridors back and got separated.”

“Not for long,” Stark said. “We’ve got another extra-warm giant running our way, with six pursuers.”

Cap gave him a hopeful look. “Shield?”

“Sorry, left it at home.” Stark smacked Cap’s Iron Man-printed ass, earning himself a squeak and a dirty look. “At least you’re wearing your battle jammies.” 

Even without the shield, Captain America was a formidable hand-to-hand fighter. Captain America, Captain America, Captain America, and Iron Man were more than a match for the six AIM guards that followed Rogers straight into an impromptu ambush. The fight was over in half a minute flat. 

“That was hilarious,” Stark said. “Especially the part where Steve and Other Other Steve ran into each other three times in ten seconds.”

“I guess we see the same openings,” Rogers said, from the floor. He’d wiped out after tripping over Cap’s knee and hadn’t bothered to stand up again. It hadn’t stopped him from taking out a second guard, though. Cap, looking sheepish, leaned down to give him a hand up.

“As fun as that was, let’s avoid a repeat. JARVIS, tell their security systems we’re somewhere else entirely, would you? Clear us a path to the field generator. Oh, and we have incoming,” Stark said casually.

“See, I knew heading towards the sound of a fight would work,” a very familiar voice said behind them. Steve spun around so fast he whacked his elbow against the Iron Man suit, but he barely noticed the sudden sting.

“Sam,” Steve said, voice a little choked. Something tight and scared in his chest that he’d been studiously ignoring this whole time loosened all at once. He launched himself into Sam’s arms and was pulled onto tip-toe as Sam hugged him tight.

“I got you, Steve. You all right?”

“I’m fine.” Steve gave Sam a squeeze around the waist before drawing back. Sam was fully geared, goggles hanging around his neck and Falcon wings folded on his back.

Stark had watched their embrace with raised eyebrows. “You two are together?”

“Yeah, we are,” Sam said levely. “That going to be a problem?”

Stark held up both hands. “Absolutely not. For one, I have no issue with beta couples, and for another, even if I did, I wouldn’t dare risk the combined power of your Captain America Is Disappointed In You and Sam Wilson Is Not Here For Your Bullshit faces. You two could scorch the earth with those things.”

“Damn straight.” Sam gripped Steve’s shoulder, then stepped back to his right, wide eyes fixed on Cap and Rogers. Rogers gave him a friendly wave. “Uh. Sitrep?”

“Better make it a walk-and-talk. Or jog-and-talk, that would be better. Field generator’s thattaway,” Stark said, pointing.

Cap took point and Rogers brought up the rear as their little procession wound deeper into the base. Steve gave Sam a quick summary of events while they made their way to the field generator room, detouring periodically to avoid the occasional moving body that appeared on Stark’s sensors.

Sam was quiet for a minute after Steve finished. “Who won at checkers?”

“I did.” Cap, Rogers, and Steve all said it in unison, then glared at each other, and wow, it was weird to see his own bitch face mirrored in duplicate.

Sam coughed like he was holding back a snicker. “Well, you’re definitely all Steve Rogers.” 

The field generator was in a heavily secured room, with reinforced steel walls and a biometric lock. Stark slapped a decryption chip onto the lock, babbling something about re-routing the authentication step to reference JARVIS’ biometric database instead of AIM’s, but the happy science chatter turned into grumpy cursing as minutes ticked by and the lock refused to surrender.

“It’ll get there eventually,” Stark said, hands on his hips. “I refuse to believe their system is anything JARVIS can’t handle. Might take a while, though.” He kicked the door with an armored boot. It didn’t even scratch.

A tiny squeal of metal was their only warning before Barnes dropped down from a ventilation hatch in the ceiling and landed in a fighting crouch. There was a gun in his right hand and a knife clenched in his metal fist. He was a little broader than Steve expected, but he and Steve’s Bucky shared the same murder face, which was oddly comforting.

“What the fuck,” Stark said, sounding more affronted than alarmed. “Where did you come from? How are you hiding from JARVIS?”

Barnes ignored him. He glowered dispassionately at everyone in the room, scanning faces, until his eyes locked on Rogers and his expression melted into pure relief. 

“Hey, Buck,” Rogers said softly, stepping up to his side.

“Fucking hell, Stevie, thought we had a deal.” Barnes didn’t put away his knife, but he tucked the gun into his belt and pulled Rogers tight against his side with his right arm. Steve had a moment of cognitive dissonance when he saw that Barnes was a couple inches  _ shorter  _ than Rogers. “No more disappearing acts. You made me promise, you little shit, pulled out the puppy dog eyes and everything.”

“I know.” Rogers kissed the side of Barnes’ neck and Barnes’ shoulders immediately lowered half an inch. “I’m sorry. Wouldn’t have left you for anything.”

“Punk,” Barnes muttered, and ruffled Rogers’ hair. 

Rogers looked at Cap and Steve, face suddenly apprehensive. “Do you--I should have asked. Do you have Bucky with you in your universes?”

Cap grinned at him. “Just got him back last year. They found him in the Alps, frozen solid. Couldn’t believe it when he came out of it alive. He’s still adjusting to the future, but he’s doing well.”

Barnes' face was impassive again. Steve was familiar with the Winter Soldier from his own Bucky’s history, and he was pretty sure this Barnes had been through something similar. Rogers put an arm around Barnes’ shoulders, offering unspoken comfort. 

“Good,” was all Barnes said. “Good for both of you.”

“Bucky and I reunited two years ago,” Steve said, picking his words carefully. He tried to think of a distraction. “Our Bucky’s an omega, and he’s with Tony.”

Stark and Barnes gave each other the exact same look of startled assessment, eyebrows rising in tandem, and that was the last straw for Sam, who started laughing so hard that he had to lean against a wall.

“What?” Stark and Barnes demanded at the same time, and Sam sank into a crouch, hands pressed to his shaking sides.

“You make a really cute couple,” Steve assured them. “Lots of shit-talking. Fair amount of brooding. You know how they get,” he said to Cap and Rogers. 

Barnes frowned. Broodingly. Steve had to admit, brooding was a good look on him. 

“So!” Stark clapped his hands together. “Speaking of. Supersoldier multiverse orgy. Thoughts?”

Everyone stopped to stare at at him. 

“Oh, come on, I cannot possibly be the only one thinking it. You know what I’m talking about, right?” Stark said to Rogers, omega to omega. “Once in a lifetime opportunity, here.”

Rogers shrugged and looked sideways at Barnes. Barnes looked around the room and shrugged back. 

“No orgies in hostile AIM facilities,” Cap said firmly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And I would say I can’t believe that has to be explicitly stated, but we’ve actually been over this before, Tony, remember?”

“I thought maybe the rules were different in this universe,” Stark said innocently. “Fine, if you insist, no orgies. Spoilsport. Barnes, how did you get here?”

“Some kinda gadget that Reed Richards cooked up.” Barnes unclipped a gadget from his belt and held it up in demonstration. “It put me down a ways outside the base. Snuck in through the tunnels from there.”

“ _Richards_? No wonder you got here last. Give me that,” Stark demanded, holding out a hand. “I’m serious, I’m not letting you trust your lives to anything made by Reed fucking Richards. It’ll probably catapult you into the sun.” 

“How’d you get here?” Steve asked Sam.

“Doctor Strange.” Sam tugged on a chain around his neck and held up an amulet that hurt Steve’s head to look at directly. It had a white stone in the center marked with a smear of blood that Steve was hoping wasn’t Sam’s. “I don’t know how it works, but it got me close enough to fly in the rest of the way.”

“Not touching it!” Stark shouted from the corner where he was disassembling Barnes’ gadget. “I don’t do magic, magic is the worst, not touching it.”

“Nobody asked you to,” Sam retorted. 

“Um,” said the woman in the doorway.

She squeaked and tried to run for it when every head in the room snapped up to look at her, but Steve was faster, and he got a good grip on her arm before she’d gone three steps. It was the same scientist who had tried to interview them earlier; she was even still holding a clipboard.

“I surrender!” she yelped, while kicking Steve in the shins. 

“I don't think that word means what you think it means,” Rogers said.

“I understood that reference,” Steve muttered, dodging an ineffectual elbow jab. He swatted the clipboard out of her hand when she tried to clobber him over the head with it.

Barnes pointed a gun at her and she immediately raised both hands.

“Don't shoot, I'm an anthropologist!”

Barnes' glower didn’t abate, but it did get a shade more confused.

“Oh, good, a member of the research team,” Stark said. “How high is your security clearance?”

High enough, as it turned out. Her palm print and retina scan opened the door to the generator room. They piled in, captive anthropologist and all.

The generator room was more like a garage than a laboratory, with rows of oil-stained workbenches and a drain set in the middle of the floor. Stark, looking very much at home, darted over to a large, humming machine anchored to the wall. 

“Oh, yes, here we are. That bit’s clever, I suppose, but--a copper compressor coil, really? And they don’t even have redundant circuitry, dear me--”

“Remember, Tony, we just need to turn it off,” Cap interrupted. “As quickly as possible, for preference.”

“Sure,” Stark said absently, ripping out a handful of wires and reconnecting half of them in a different configuration. “Five more minutes.”

“I don’t suppose, before you go, you could just run through a quick comparison of your experiences with the American military and the USO circuit?” the anthropologist asked despondently. 

“Here's a fact for comparison,” Rogers said. “In each of our universes, AIM sucks.”

“Yeah, well, at least they're not grant funded,” she muttered under her breath.

Barnes was getting antsy, eyes flicking between Rogers and the door. “You said five minutes, Stark.”

“And it’s only been four minutes, Barnes, so don’t get your panties in a twist.”

“Are you going to be done in one minute?”

“Anything is possible.” Stark grabbed a soldering iron off the bench behind him. “Whoever built this was a genius, and also an idiot, and possibly drunk. The whole concept is staggeringly ahead of its time, but I swear some of these parts are in backwards.”

“How long until it’s disabled, Tony?” Cap asked.

“Difficult to say, could be thirty seconds, could be ten minutes. I just need to isolate the power source, decouple the--”

Barnes’ metal fist swung forward and smashed through the center of the generator, crumpling the metal siding and sending chips of circuit board flying. The humming wound down abruptly, leaving a sudden, ear-ringing silence.

Stark clapped both gauntleted hands to the top of his helmet with a loud clang. “Or we could just punch the delicate piece of totally unknown technology, sure, that’s never ended badly.”

Barnes shrugged. “It worked.”

“This time, yeah. It could have just blown up in your face--”

“But it didn’t,” Barnes said, supremely unconcerned.

“Or gotten stuck in the ‘on’ position permanently--”

“Didn’t do that, either.”

Steve kind of wanted to stay and watch the argument, but Sam’s amulet was glowing and pins and needles were sweeping through his whole body. Sam’s hand was tight on his, a steady pressure as the rest of the world tipped sideways and dissolved--

 

\--And then he and Sam were lying on the floor of Bruce’s lab, a ring of anxious teammates standing around them. 

“Home?” Steve said muzzily, shaking out his legs. His feet were asleep.

“Welcome back.” Dr. Strange stepped forward, his cloak whirling around him as he spun down to deftly remove the amulet from Sam’s neck. He held up a bulbous lens of green glass and eyed them both critically. “You’re both well, I trust? Fingers and toes intact?”

“So far as I know.” Steve poked Sam until he groaned and sat up. “Everyone all right?”

“Shouldn’t we be asking you that?” Tony asked. “None of us got dragged into a different dimension.”

“I’m fine,” Steve assured them, standing and helping Sam to his feet. “No injuries, just a really weird new kidnapping story.”

“Whoa,” Clint said, pointing at Steve’s crotch. “Have a good time over there, Cap?”

Natasha slapped Clint upside the head, which Clint took without flinching. Tony and Bucky were also staring at Steve’s groin with unconcealed interest.

Steve glared and crossed his arms, refusing to cover his crotch like a teenager. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Later, huh? You gonna do a  _ private debrief _ with Sam first?” Bucky said. Natasha feinted a slap at his head, then elbowed him in the side when he moved to block. Tony waited until she was done, then gave Bucky a high-five.

“Fuck off,” Steve said fondly. It was good to be home.

 

Sam followed him into the elevator for their floor easily enough, and he seemed to have no objections whatsoever to Steve wrapping his legs around Sam’s waist and kissing him breathless as soon as they got through the front door, but he balked when Steve steered them into the bedroom.

“Steve,” Sam said, holding him by the shoulders. His lips were kiss-swollen already, and his eyes were a little hazy in a way Steve found very promising. “This isn’t a rejection, but you were dosed with some kind of weird sex drug not too long ago. I don’t want to risk doing something if your judgment is impaired.”

Steve took a deep breath and dropped deliberately into his Captain Fucking America voice. “Sam. I just spent several hours in close quarters with some  _ very  _ attractive people, and I didn’t jump any of them, because you’re my partner and we hadn’t discussed that. When you showed up, I didn’t jump you either, because we were in enemy territory and otherwise occupied, and I made a rational decision not to. My judgment is not compromised. I am completely lucid, I am very horny, and I need you to either get on the damn bed, or get out of the way so I can go jerk off in the shower about ten times.”

Sam got on the damn bed. Smart man, Sam Wilson.

 

“Hey, Sam,” Steve said, much later.

“Yeah?” 

“What would you think about us asking to join Tony and Bucky on their next heat? Maybe they could use a few extra hands.”

“Hands, huh?” Sam said dryly, and Steve grinned into the darkness.

“Yeah,” he said, in his most innocent voice. “You know, to grab water or food. Run baths. That sort of thing.”

Sam reached out for Steve’s hand and laced their fingers together. “I have to admit, your giant doubles and their Bucky and Tony looked damn good together.”

“Mmm. I saw you looking at Bucky’s shoulders.”

“I saw you checking out Tony’s ass.”

“It’s a nice ass.”

“Not as nice as yours.” Sam nudged Steve closer and put his chin on top of Steve’s head. “I love you.”

“I know.”

Sam groaned. “Never should’ve let you see that movie.”

“Never should’ve told me you had a boyhood crush on Han Solo,” Steve countered.

Sam’s grip tightened. “Maybe stay in this galaxy for a while, huh, Solo?”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” Steve said, and leaned over Sam for a long, deep kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> CW details: A team of AIM scientists kidnap the Steves and use what they hope is sex pollen on them. It does make them biologically aroused, but it doesn’t lower their inhibitions or compromise their ability to make decisions or consent--basically it’s supersoldier Viagra, not a supersoldier roofie. The Steves escape before AIM can correct the formula, and the only sex in this fic occurs with enthusiastic consent, after a discussion of the drug’s effects.


End file.
